To accommodate different equipment combinations of scales, display screens, keyboards, printers, etc. as well as different layouts of store counters and checkout stations, suitable support stands for different installations could be custom-fabricated. However, a modular building-block system from which a support column can be assembled to meet the specific requirements of a given application appears to be preferable as a more cost-effective solution. Indeed, the present state of the art offers good examples of such modular support systems, which will be discussed below.
Food equipment, i.e. equipment used in the processing and handling of food products in industrial, commercial and institutional establishments, has to meet specific sanitary requirements, which are set down for example in the U.S. standard “NSF/ANSI 2—Food Equipment”. These sanitary aspects include, among others, the general ease of cleaning (general sanitation) and also specific details such as radii of internal angles and corners, exposed joints and seams, fasteners such as screws and rivets, and many more.
Consequently, modular adaptability as well as compliance with sanitary requirements and standards are important criteria in selecting a support column or post for display screens, keyboards and printers for use with a weighing scale and/or point-of-sale terminal in a retail food store, particularly on a store counter where meat, fish, poultry cheese and similarly sensitive food products are handled, packaged and sold to order.
An electronic video display mount for use at point-of-sale terminals is described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,717,506. It includes a substantially vertical tubular mounting pole attached to a pole foot and carrying, by way of a vertically adjustable connecting collar, a horizontal slide arm to which the display panel is connected. The position of the display panel can be adjusted by changing the vertical distance of the connecting collar from the pole foot and by sliding the panel horizontally on the slide arm. The range of vertical adjustment can be extended with one or more additional tubular sections designed as modules with mating connections. However, at least the video display mount proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,717,506 does not appear to be designed to meet the aforementioned food equipment standard NSF/ANSI 2. In particular the mechanism of the horizontal slide arm gives the impression of being difficult to clean.
A modular mounting system for retail terminal equipment such as touchscreen panels, printers and credit card readers is offered under the trade name of Spacepole® by Ergonomic Solutions International Ltd, B2 Longmead Business Centre, Blenheim Road, Epsom KT19 9QQ, United Kingdom. The building blocks of this system include tubular poles, swing arms, tilt hinges, and associated fastening and connecting hardware.
The aforementioned video display mount according to U.S. Pat. No. 8,717,506 as well as the SPACEPOLE® modular mounting system are described as being in compliance with the so-called VESA mounting interface standard, which is the name of a family of standards defined by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) for mounting flat panel monitors, TVs, and other displays to stands or walls. However, insofar as these equipment mounts might be considered for use on retail counters for goods such as meat, poultry and seafood, it appears at least from the descriptions and illustrations that the aspects of U.S. standard “NSF/ANSI 2—Food Equipment” have not been addressed.
A major difficulty in designing a modular mounting system that also meets the sanitary requirements of the NSF/ANSI 2 standard lies in the joints and connections which necessarily exist between the modules, so that the surface of a modular system may have recesses and crevices as well as projecting fasteners preventing efficient cleaning, so that food residues could accumulate and bacterial infestation could occur.
The invention therefore has the objective to provide an improved support column for electronic data terminal equipment, in particular video display screens, touchscreen panels, keyboards and printers of the kinds that are commonly used in connection with retail scales and at point-of-sale terminals. The support column according to the desired improvement should on the one hand be designed as a modular system of building blocks from which a column can be assembled to fit a given situation, but at the same time it should be suitable for use in retail food businesses where sanitary aspects are critical.